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Blackheart the Inciter
Second boss of Shadow Labyrinth in Auchindoun. General information *Level (Normal): 72 Elite *Level (Heroic): 72 Elite *Type: Humanoid *Located at map location 2. Attacks and abilities *'Melee': He does weak melee damage (about 800 per hit to a warrior in full Wrath set) *'Incite Chaos': Full party mind control. The party will go free for all, and start randomly killing each other. He will not take part in this fight. Lasts approx 15 seconds. Dumps aggro. The first one is cast around 0:20, then 1:00 and so on approximately every 40 seconds. *'AoE Knockback': Knocks the whole party back, reducing aggro. *'Charge': He charges at random stunning for 1 second, dealing about 2K dmg and then returning to the previous target. Heroic *'Melee': 2500 dmg (Success on heroic will depend on good pickup of Blackheart after the group MC. He can crit clothies for ~8000 damage.) *'Charge': 300 dmg (Reduced from normal mode) *'War Stomp': 1200 dmg Strategy Room clearing All of the mobs in the room will aggro when you start combat with him so the room must be fully cleared. In addition to the Instructors and the nasty four and five-pulls, there are one to several wandering stealthed Assassins that must be dealt with before you start the fight. General strategy This boss does rather low amounts of melee damage (in Normal mode) and as long as the Tank has aggro he can be nuked down fairly quickly. During the fight, along with the Incite Chaos party MC, he will also periodically do a War Stomp/AoE Knockback that will kick anyone near him back a significant distance and reduce their aggro significantly. This often happens in combination with a Charge ability, making it extremely difficult at times for the Tank to hold the boss. It is a good idea to position the boss in a corner so the Tank isn't knocked completely out of range by the stomp and can more easily reestablish aggro. Popular spots for this include the left mound behind him and the doorway behind him. The Knockback also does a fair amount of damage, so it is best for anyone who does not need to be in melee range to be well away from him. A lot of his abilities during this fight reduce or erase the aggro table. Incite Chaos will completely reset the table, while his Knockback and Charge abilities cause significant aggro reductions. After these abilities are used, it is critical for the party to step back and let the Tank reestablish his hold on the Inciter. Stop attacks and heals and run towards the Tank so he can pick up Inciter. In normal mode there is some leeway because he does not hit all that hard, groups running Shadow Labs in Heroic mode need to get this down pat because he can two or three shot clothies if he is left on them too long. Keeping the Tank topped off with HoT's can help a lot with this so that healers do not draw aggro during this time. Lifebloom is particularly useful as the ending tick dumps some aggro onto the Tank. The standard strategy is to have the tank hold him against the wall on top of the left mound behind him. The rest of the party stands on the right mound and does damage. When the tank loses aggro, this arrangement makes it easy to pick Inciter back up, especially if the tank is a Warrior who can Intervene to grab him very quickly. Additional notes: * NORMAL mode only! - He is Graveyard Zergable. If someone dies during the fight and a combat res is not available, they should immediately release and run back as quickly as possible. Not only can they get back into the fight, but once the dead person re-enters the instance, Inciter sometimes charges after them across the whole instance, giving the remaining party members time to regen and bandage. It is important to get a good clear of the first room done if you are going to use this strategy, as it is also possible for the returning party member to get MC'ed into remaining groups in the first room. (Verified, patch 2.1.x) * HEROIC mode only! - He is NOT Graveyard Zergable. The instance will deny re-entry to dead party members with an "event in progress" message. (Verified, patch 2.1.x) * There may be a glitch with Warlock curses during this fight. Curses applied after a MC may not replace the curses applied before, letting them stack. * While fighting this boss (normal mode), our group hit a glitch where he seemed to 'evade' momentarily, and regained a large percentage of his health (which caused us to wipe). This may have been due to the person with aggro getting knocked up onto a ledge or into a location where Blackheart momentarily could not reach him. Not sure if there is much you can do to avoid this (patch 2.1.3)(still occuring as of 10/4/07 - patch 2.2.2) Incite Chaos The main ability of this boss is a 15-second Party Mind Control called Incite Chaos in which he stands back and laughs at you while you merrily beat each other to death. The ability not only causes your party to turn against one another, it also completely wipes the aggro table. This turns the fight into more of an endurance test and test of your healers than a brute force fight, as high-DPS parties are apt to kill one another very quickly during Incite Chaos. Some general tips for surviving it: * Party members can remove their weapons right before an Incite Chaos to drastically reduce damage against group members. * Burn all dangerous and/or expensive abilities as quickly as possible, so they cannot be used against you. It is important for Paladins to ensure their Lay on Hands is on cooldown before starting the fight, as it will consume all of their mana if used during MC. * Rogues should not use poisons and Warlocks should try to burn their mana as quickly as possible. * If you have a Hunter, have them set up a Freezing Trap under the party's main healer. While ice blocked they can't waste their mana and they can't do damage to their fellow party members. * Casters in general should be wearing +regen gear instead of +damage gear, since this is more an endurance fight than a DPS fight, and high DPS can be dangerous. * Bring a tree-form Druid. During the MC, a tree-form Druid will do no damage to the party and will generally just stand there healing itself. This helps two ways, as you have one less party member damaging another, and your healer is apt to finish the MC at full health or near to. * Barkskin/Tranquility (requires Druid Tank). A druid who is tanking Blackheart can cast Barkskin (to avoid interruption) and then Tranquility immediately following one of the MC's during the fight (10min cooldown means you can only do this once). This has two benefits: First, it will quickly top off the party's health without using your healer's mana. Second, it will generate a significant amount of healing aggro (Tranquility is one of the highest aggro-generating spells in the game), allowing the druid to shift to bear and tank Blackheart without chasing after him. (Verified, patch 2.1.x) * Curse of Doom. Warlocks in the party can use their Curse of Doom as a sort of short-term kiting mechanism if timed correctly (if you're using a pally tank this can allow the rest of the group a significant amount of free DPS time just before the beginning of an Incite Chaos. Because there are 40 seconds between Incite Chaos phases and Incite Chaos lasts 15 seconds you can time a Curse of Doom to go off at a pre-determined time with practice. If you hug the tank's threat and put some distance between the Inciter and yourself just before the curse goes off you can get him to chase you. This will give the warlock a significant threat-lead over the rest of the party and allow the other DPSers to go all out for 5-7 seconds before the Inciter casts Incite Chaos again and resets his threat list. If you have a timer the timing is easy. If you don't you can use your regular DoTs to time them. Note: because of the Inciter's 55 second phase cycle, you can only do this 2-3 times before you lose a phase purely to Curse of Doom's cooldown. After the MC the party will need to pause for a bit and let the Tank re-establish aggro on Inciter. There are only 40 seconds between each Incite Chaos, so once the Tank has some hate built up, it is important for the party to start slowly ramping up damage on the boss as soon as possible. Possible ways to avoid/mitigate the Mind Control: * Hunter's Freezing Trap. Placed properly, it will freeze one party member. During the duration of the Freeze effect, they will be unable to attack others or be forced to waste their mana/cooldowns. (Verified, patch 2.1.x) (note: nearby party members *will* attack the frozen person and break the effect; if you are going to freeze trap the healer, the Hunter needs to stand closer to other party members than to the healer and ditch their ranged weapon before the MC. Taking an Aimed Shot/Viper Sting combo is real bad. Matthias99 02:51, 23 August 2007 (UTC)) * Ice Block. If used at the proper time, it may allow you to avoid part/all of the MC. (Verified, patch 2.1.x) * Dreamless Sleep Potion. If used just before the MC, it may allow you to avoid up to 12 seconds of the MC, with a bonus of regenerating your health and mana. (Verified but ineffective, patch 2.1.x. Your teammates usually hit you, breaking the effect and wasting your potions cooldown) (note: other sources seem to indicate that you will dispel the potion effect while under MC and just start attacking. Would be nice if someone could get a definitive answer. Matthias99 02:51, 23 August 2007 (UTC)) * Vanish. If used at the proper time, it may allow you to avoid part/all of the MC. (Verify) * Succubus. If the Warlock keeps his Succubus out and on "Defensive", when MC'ed she will cast Seduction on the Warlock. The effect of the seduction will end when incite chaos ends (verified 7/27/07) * If a shaman removes their weapon buff before the fight, Blackheart will just reapply it. Instead, apply your level 1 weapon buff and he will not 'upgrade' it. * AI can't jump down from the ledge of wall just under the stairs, so player is safe there from MC'ed melee party members. One way to get there is AoE knockback. BEWARE: Boss evades when aggroed by player on ledge. Palecek 11:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC) * Before the fight, Priests can mind-control a Cabal Acolyte during the clearing of the room. The Acolyte has a greater shadow protection spell that can be applied to everyone in the party, absorbing up to 3000 shadow damage. UPDATE 7/19/2007 * Right after Incite Chaos it drops you out of combat and it is possible to eat/drink. This works real well if the tank can pick him up before he hits anyone else. (note: this did not happen as of 8/21/2007, but maybe it would if you were frozen/iceblocked and had nobody attacking you for at least the last 6 seconds of the MC? Matthias99 02:51, 23 August 2007 (UTC)) ** This has caused a full reset, however. Everyone eating/drinking means no aggro, and he resets; then if someone is up on his dais, he aggroes them and the fight starts all over. UPDATE 12/5/2007 * It appears that he performs Incite Chaos at 75%, 50% and 25% health, meaning it is no longer a timed spell at 40 seconds, which should allow party members to disarm themselves just prior to the mind control. TGPO 14:04, 5 December 2007 Alternate strategies Cubby hole Drag him to the cubby hole area on the right side of the room. Place the group with their backs to the pillar and the tank on the outer wall. This positioning allows all party members to dps (particularly those who need to stand at his back), prevents line of sight issues, and tends to limit the scattering caused by the group mind control. It is still a long fight, but positioning the boss in this way is much easier on the tank. Another approach is to fight him at the back of the room (at the exit door). When he walks to the right side of the platform, the party can run to the back on the left side. If you stand at the exit door, he will not aggro until you are ready to fight. This positioning works extremely well to mitigate knock backs and scattering, although it does not allow players to fight him from behind. The Cubby Hole strategy is excellent, but difficult to get a PUG to do. Telling everyone to follow you around to the back of the room has the advantage of simplicity for even the most lackluster players. High DPS The logic to this strategy is twofold. One is that Blackheart doesn't hit hard at all. This allows any DPS class, even clothies, to absorb hits without getting two shotted. The second point is that Blackheart wastes the healer's mana already on mana intensive spells like chain lightning, holy nova. It is better to waste your mana healing than doing damage to your friends right? For this strategy, you still need to blow short cooldowns that last less than 10 seconds like adrenaline rush. However, cooldowns that last longer, like bloodlust should not be wasted. Healers should not be afraid to use their top Heal per second heals. When you engage Blackheart, give your tank 2 seconds to get one sunder, or whatever aggro holding move on Blackheart. Then go all out, using all your short cooldowns. Don't worry about pulling aggro. Blackheart hits like a chump. Just lay it all at him. Blackheart will randomly mind control you after a few seconds of beatings. After the first mind control, wait one second for the tank to try to hold aggro. If the tank doesn't, don't worry. Just lay it on Blackheart. Again, if you pull aggro, the healer should not worry about wasting mana. Its going to be wasted anyways. At the 3rd mind control, you should have Blackheart at less than 60%. If you don't, then you either don't have enough DPS, or you are waiting too long to DPS. After the 3rd mind control, the healer needs to use his/her mana regaining ability. If its a priest, shadow fiend. If its a druid, innervate. If its a shaman, mana pot(or mana tide). If its a Paladin, pot. At this stage, your DPS again needs to go all out. Don't worry about heals. They will keep coming. After he gets his 4th mind control off, its do or die. The healer is probably out of mana at this point. If he isn't a resto shaman, paladin, druid, or priest, he probably wasted his potion cooldown timer. If the healer can use something like wardrums, or dark runes, or any alternative mana regaining ability, use it now. All DPS needs to bandage, and then DPS Blackheart down. If you don't down him this try, or get him down to at least 2-5%, its a wipe. Hints: 1) Stay on top of the platform, that way, the healer can always reach you with heals. 2) If you are a non dagger rogue that is a melee class, DPS facing him. The tank should be tanking Blackheart with his back to a wall, facing him will decrease the downtime a knockback will give you, and increase your overall DPS on Blackheart. 3) Healers don't be afraid to waste mana. I can't stress this enough. He wastes it for you already. Use what you can to top off your party. 4) If the healer pulls aggro, don't panic and yell for DPS to stop. Just keep DPSing. If the healer invested in pushback talents, then he/she should be fine self healing. UPDATE 12/5/2007 * He performs Incite Chaos 3 times, once at 75%, 50% and 25% health, so adjust your DPS strategy accordingly. TGPO 14:09, 5 December 2007 Quotes Intro: 'Whole flesh must burn!' 'All creation must be unmade!' 'Power will be yours!' 'Be ready for Dark One's return.' 'So we have place new universe!' 'Dark One promise!' Aggro: 'You'll be sorry!' 'Time for fun!' 'I see dead people!' 'Time to kill!' 'You be dead people!' Kill: 'No coming back for you!' 'Nice try!' 'Now you gone for good!' 'You fail! ' Help: 'Help us! Hurry!' Death: 'This...no...good..' '' Loot (Note: Spirit Shards are obtained when your respective faction has the PvP buff.) External links Category:Ogres Category:Bosses Category:Instance:Shadow Labyrinth Category:Unique Voice